The Last of Us: Exploratory thread

2014-08-02 09:52:51 am

I dont think I've heard of anyone using infinite shiv, I guess it could be useful to just get all the shivs you need for the run and never have to craft another, I just never really thought it would save much time.

Caveberry

2014-08-02 04:12:50 pm

trepidation

I guess I need to watch the WR. Before I start making route suggestions, but I thought maybe it could be useful for enemy takedowns.

TheThrillness

2014-08-03 03:55:25 pm

thethrillness.blogspot.com

Can anyone actually recreate the water glitch posted earlier at Bus Depot? Reference: http://www.twitch.tv/hmichaelh2015/c/2623096

Caveberry

Edit history:

Caveberry: 2014-08-04 11:04:51 am

Caveberry: 2014-08-03 10:02:16 pm

Caveberry: 2014-08-03 09:51:56 pm

2014-08-03 09:44:16 pm

trepidation

huh... I'm probably just rusty, but I can't get the drop trick to work on the PS4 version. Someone else want to give it a try?

EDIT: NVM, I got it. confirmed!

EDIT 2: Wow. I may have made a pretty significant discovery. After about half an hour of trying, I am only able to do this trick when the frame rate is locked to 30FPS.

There seems to be an ideal rhythm in which to tap the left stick forwards and backwards. I can't get it to work for 60fps though. this game might end up like the Tomb Raider reboot, in that different frame rates will affect glitches in different ways.

Voloxer

Edit history:

Voloxer: 2014-08-05 10:01:17 am

Voloxer: 2014-08-05 10:01:08 am

Voloxer: 2014-08-05 10:00:51 am

Voloxer: 2014-08-05 10:00:47 am

Voloxer: 2014-08-05 10:00:43 am

Voloxer: 2014-08-05 09:58:26 am

Voloxer: 2014-08-05 09:53:45 am

2014-08-05 09:50:44 am

What exactly do you do? Just walk into the water holding forward and then hold back? The guy in the video I posted before commented back and said something like you're supposed to dive as you get in the water and stay close to the blue line on the side.

Also I have heard that The University is very very broken. I know there's probably a lot of potential for OOB skips in this game still.

- despawn of some kind
- possible sewer fight skip

Watts

2014-08-05 07:44:35 pm

Quote from Caveberry:

huh... I'm probably just rusty, but I can't get the drop trick to work on the PS4 version. Someone else want to give it a try?

EDIT: NVM, I got it. confirmed!

EDIT 2: Wow. I may have made a pretty significant discovery. After about half an hour of trying, I am only able to do this trick when the frame rate is locked to 30FPS.

There seems to be an ideal rhythm in which to tap the left stick forwards and backwards. I can't get it to work for 60fps though. this game might end up like the Tomb Raider reboot, in that different frame rates will affect glitches in different ways.

I've heard people compare this game to the Tomb Raider reboot before. Also, its starting to sound to me like nothing was fixed/patched in the remaster. Haven't gotten a chance to really watch any footage of the game but haven't heard much has changed. Are you load times much better?

Voloxer

2014-08-05 08:08:14 pm

That's what I've been hearing like caveberry said.. I think we can pretty much say with confidence there's no difference.. however I feel like the load times would HAVE to be better unless it's a port which it isn't. So I'm saying remaster is likely only slightly faster due to load times we're probably talking a minute or less, that is, unless it is found to have some skip or glitch that the original doesn't which I'd say isn't too likely.

Caveberry

Edit history:

Caveberry: 2014-08-07 11:03:58 pm

Caveberry: 2014-08-06 11:04:35 am

2014-08-06 11:02:29 am

trepidation

I played a large portion last night, and all the OoBs we discovered in the dam/Tommy's base are still there too. The only thing I didn't have the patience to try out was if the "dismounting the horse" glitch still worked, but it stands to reason that it still does.

Also, if the initial install time or the time it takes to load a game file are any indication, load times have definitely been improved. If I had to guess, I'd say they've been cut in half.

If anyone wants to mess around with it, I experimented with using the drop trick's basic principle to clip through walls. I had zero luck with straight vertical walls, but I had some luck with angled ones that I could crouch under. I was able to clip Joel's head through a couple walls and see OoB. I was never able to fully clip through though, but it's a start. (maybe messing around with different weapons animations while half clipped will bring results?) Sadly, it's a pretty specific terrain type, so it probably won't yield (m)any useful skips.

Also, I happened to get the drop skip at 60fps last night. This could mean a few things. One, it's just easier @ 30fps. Two, some ledges are harder to perform the trick on than others. Or three, I just suck Wink

I played a large portion last night, and all the OoBs we discovered in the dam/Tommy's base are still there too. The only thing I didn't have the patience to try out was if the "dismounting the horse" glitch still worked, but it stands to reason that it still does.

Also, if the initial install time or the time it takes to load a game file are any indication, load times have definitely been improved. If I had to guess, I'd say they've been cut in half.

If anyone wants to mess around with it, I experimented with using the drop trick's basic principle to clip through walls. I had zero luck with straight vertical walls, but I had some luck with angled ones that I could crouch under. I was able to clip Joel's head through a couple walls and see OoB. I was never able to fully clip through though, but it's a start. (maybe messing around with different weapons animations while half clipped will bring results?) Sadly, it's a pretty specific terrain type, so it probably won't yield (m)any useful skips.

Also, I happened to get the drop skip at 60fps last night. This could mean a few things. One, it's just easier @ 30fps. Two, some ledges are harder to perform the trick on than others. Or three, I just suck ;)

Kefka14

2014-09-26 02:13:21 am

I have recently decided to pick up Easy+ of this game. I'm not typically very good at this style of game, but something about this game intrigues me. I'm still in the noob stages, but more to come...

FHEDNR

2014-09-29 08:07:39 pm

Hello Guys ! This is what I found at tommy's.

The thing is, I didnt record this in English !

So please watch it in mute.

All you need is a molotov.

AS the games starts you run to the other side of the bridge with a molotov.

The NPC will do the dirt work for you killing everyone.

And you finish the stage with a molotov.

TheThrillness

Edit history:

TheThrillness: 2015-01-10 04:01:29 am

2015-01-10 04:00:46 am

thethrillness.blogspot.com

Decided to try and start a segmented run but ran into an issue. I'm running on PS3 and did the Prologue as a tester. The Prologue takes RTA of about 8 minutes. What I then did is get into Chapter 2 and then checked the load game time. The load game time stated it was 16 minutes. It looks like Naughty Dog is adding all cutscene time to the IGT even if you skip them. They did this with Uncharted 2 for some reason also.

I'd rather use IGT so it's easier to time. The last thing to check is how the PS4 version handles this. If anyone has some spare time I'd really appreciate it if you played the PS4 version, started a new game, saved to a new slot and played the prologue in speedrun style (skip cutscenes) until the next chapter loads. Pause the game and then check the load game time. See if it is anywhere close to 8 minutes or still the usual 16 minutes.

SgtSnuggleButt

2015-01-20 07:44:09 am

Is this community dead? Or just a little dead. Looking to run this game but I would like to run with a community.

TheThrillness

2015-02-05 06:47:07 am

thethrillness.blogspot.com

Saw this on YouTube:

Took me about 10 minutes to replicate it and find a fight skip for the DLC. You must be crouching for this to work:

Pretty sure this will work for the second wave of enemies. No idea how I got checkpointed inside that building though. The checkpoint system gets completely confused when you do this.

Caveberry

2015-02-05 11:05:22 am

trepidation

Awsome! I've been waiting for a reason to bust out this game again. Has it been confirmed to work on Ps3? I wonder how many other places it will work... I can think of a few mandatory fights I'd like to skip.

TheThrillness

Edit history:

TheThrillness: 2015-02-05 12:32:51 pm

TheThrillness: 2015-02-05 12:32:10 pm

TheThrillness: 2015-02-05 12:31:21 pm

2015-02-05 12:30:19 pm

thethrillness.blogspot.com

I play on PS3 so yes. I also managed to skip the second wave but it's not an automatic skip. The triangle prompt is tied to the clickers appearing to totally unload everything. You must first start the second wave, kill some specific guys until one of them mentions infected and then redo the glitch again. I have it on Twitch but highlighting isn't allowing me to seek in any video I have so can't show it totally. You'll have to manually search for it at 1:12:03 to 1:14:45 here: http://www.twitch.tv/thethrillness/b/620788320

If you're wondering why I wait around 20 seconds it's so the game doesn't get the bad glitch as shown in the YouTube video. I've gotten it to work at 7 seconds before so it's some time between 7 seconds and 20 seconds where the lock works like normal. The second lock can be activated asap as shown in Twitch recording.

TheThrillness

2015-02-06 03:49:36 pm

thethrillness.blogspot.com

Did a segmented speedrun. Both fight skips included. Not the most optimal skips but holy hell even getting this was really hard:

Wanted to submit it to the speedrun.com leaderboards but they have the weirdest rule I've ever seen, "3. Glitchless". God forbid someone makes a speedrun of a game faster by using glitches.

Caveberry

2015-02-13 09:56:39 am

trepidation

Nice run! Those headshots and bricks were on point! I was reminded of how much of a walking simulator the DLC was though.

Any luck getting this trick to work in the main game, or do you think this glitch is area specific?

TheThrillness

2015-02-13 05:20:57 pm

thethrillness.blogspot.com

Haven't had time to try the main game. I had to do an RTA of the above run as the speedrun.com leaderboards banned segmented runs. It's here if you want to see:

As for your question, it's definitely area specific. It depends how Naughty Dog have laid it out. Obviously to start testing we want to have an area similar to Left Behind where you climb up to another part of the same level. Testing something like this is of course really difficult. I can sort of help in narrowing down areas that will work though. That specific area of Left Behind usually instantly restarts if you press "Restart Encounter". However, I've noticed that whenever I've failed the skip and I've JUST started to climb or halfway up the climb, I press "Restart Encounter". The game then takes like 6-7 seconds to reload in the same area that was once instant.

So the testing can be limited to:

1. Restart encounter to an area. If it loads back in almost instantly, it's good for testing.
2. Find suitable locations in that area to climb up to bug the camera.
3. As you climb back up, restart encounter and see if the game takes longer to load in.
4. If so, that area is weak to camera unloading.

Haven't had time to try the main game. I had to do an RTA of the above run as the speedrun.com leaderboards banned segmented runs. It's here if you want to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THUE_AMbkpM

As for your question, it's definitely area specific. It depends how Naughty Dog have laid it out. Obviously to start testing we want to have an area similar to Left Behind where you climb up to another part of the same level. Testing something like this is of course really difficult. I can sort of help in narrowing down areas that will work though. That specific area of Left Behind usually instantly restarts if you press "Restart Encounter". However, I've noticed that whenever I've failed the skip and I've JUST started to climb or halfway up the climb, I press "Restart Encounter". The game then takes like 6-7 seconds to reload in the same area that was once instant.

So the testing can be limited to:

1. Restart encounter to an area. If it loads back in almost instantly, it's good for testing.
2. Find suitable locations in that area to climb up to bug the camera.
3. As you climb back up, restart encounter and see if the game takes longer to load in.
4. If so, that area is weak to camera unloading.

TheThrillness

2015-02-14 04:23:31 pm

thethrillness.blogspot.com

Decided to play around with the camera glitch in Chapter 1 of the DLC and well... I'll let the run explain. Wink

SCOOP

2015-02-14 10:25:23 pm

Oh my god ! Left Behind shorter then NES Contra ! Crazy stuff , Thrillness. Game totally broken on valentine's day Smiley

TheThrillness

Edit history:

TheThrillness: 2015-02-27 10:32:41 am

2015-02-16 12:16:03 pm

thethrillness.blogspot.com

Decided to write up an explanation of what is going on.

I found a monster sequence break that basically skips from the start of Chapter 1 to the middle of Chapter 5. It saves approximately 25 minutes on a speedrun.

At 0:22 I do a glitch that unloads the games level (see my previous post on the 5th February).

At 0:34 it looks like the area has fully loaded in but it actually hasn't. The game has not enabled collision for that particular area. It takes some extra time to load it in. During this time we are able to jump down onto a lower part of collision.

At 0:39 I crouch along to the end and jump down. This is the only area from my testing that works. We take some fall damage and the game then begins to load in the Chapter 5 area.

I stand near the counter at 1:00 for two reasons:

1. We must be inside the checkpoint area for the game to load properly.
2. We basically have no health and we need to stock back up.

At 1:05 the Chapter 5 checkpoint is triggered and we can continue the run as normal. At 1:44 I spend time to wait for the ammo to spawn since we skipped ammo drops from the other chapters. You can also pick up arrows here and the game will give you the bow. We don't need this for a speedrun though so I skip it.

At 1:47 I restart the checkpoint because the game will refill our health by a decent amount and we need that for the second wave of enemies. At 2:05 we use the same glitch at the start of the run to unload the enemies and trick the game into thinking we killed them all.

From 2:18 to 2:40 I'm simply waiting for the game to completely load in. If you don't wait then Ellie will pretty much soft lock when you press triangle. This part could probably be improved.

For the second wave we must kill some enemies so "Oh. shit, We got infected!" comes up. If you do the glitch before this then you pretty much softlock. The trigger seems to be tied to what would technically be called the third wave which only triggers when some enemies die from the second wave.

We restart checkpoint at 3:19 because the game has a chance to softlock in the next area if you use the lock. You can get an invisible Ellie and all sort of weird stuff.

At 3:49, the game continues as normal.

Decided to write up an explanation of what is going on.

I found a monster sequence break that basically skips from the start of Chapter 1 to the middle of Chapter 5. It saves approximately 25 minutes on a speedrun.

At 0:22 I do a glitch that unloads the games level (see my previous post on the 5th February).

At 0:34 it looks like the area has fully loaded in but it actually hasn't. The game has not enabled collision for that particular area. It takes some extra time to load it in. During this time we are able to jump down onto a lower part of collision.

At 0:39 I crouch along to the end and jump down. This is the only area from my testing that works. We take some fall damage and the game then begins to load in the Chapter 5 area.

I stand near the counter at 1:00 for two reasons:

1. We must be inside the checkpoint area for the game to load properly.
2. We basically have no health and we need to stock back up.

At 1:05 the Chapter 5 checkpoint is triggered and we can continue the run as normal. At 1:44 I spend time to wait for the ammo to spawn since we skipped ammo drops from the other chapters. You can also pick up arrows here and the game will give you the bow. We don't need this for a speedrun though so I skip it.

At 1:47 I restart the checkpoint because the game will refill our health by a decent amount and we need that for the second wave of enemies. At 2:05 we use the same glitch at the start of the run to unload the enemies and trick the game into thinking we killed them all.

From 2:18 to 2:40 I'm simply waiting for the game to completely load in. If you don't wait then Ellie will pretty much soft lock when you press triangle. This part could probably be improved.

For the second wave we must kill some enemies so "Oh. shit, We got infected!" comes up. If you do the glitch before this then you pretty much softlock. The trigger seems to be tied to what would technically be called the third wave which only triggers when some enemies die from the second wave.

We restart checkpoint at 3:19 because the game has a chance to softlock in the next area if you use the lock. You can get an invisible Ellie and all sort of weird stuff.

At 3:49, the game continues as normal.

Caveberry

2015-02-17 12:08:00 am

trepidation

Sweet action! These are the types of breaks that I follow this scene for.

I would still love to hear a more detailed explanation of how the camera clip works. I noticed that you changed the set up quite a bit in those last videos. Also, you tried to explain what areas were exploitable, and it was still a bit confusing. It sounded like you were saying, "where ever a loading trigger happened between elevation changes" was susceptible, but I couldn't be sure.

TheThrillness

Edit history:

TheThrillness: 2015-02-17 06:35:07 am

2015-02-17 06:28:32 am

thethrillness.blogspot.com

I had to find a new set up because I don't get the bow in Chapter 1. It was possible to do it with the handgun but really difficult. I like this new setup. It is slightly slower but it's crazy consistent, like 90-95%.

Saying something like "where ever a loading trigger happened between elevation changes" is probably a good way of describing this. I did try it a tad in the main game and it's probably difficult to do. Not because of lack of areas, it's simply because Joel's climbing animation doesn't allow for as much camera wackiness as Ellie since he climbs much faster. Winter could be interesting though.

TheThrillness

Edit history:

TheThrillness: 2015-03-01 07:50:20 am

TheThrillness: 2015-03-01 07:46:20 am

2015-03-01 07:44:18 am

thethrillness.blogspot.com

Decided to start segmenting the main game. You can do some really interesting tactics. Should turn out to be a really good watch. Currently about 3:30 ahead of the RTA WR after getting into the subway.

I used Pewable's gun clip skip he found years ago and it got me really puzzled as to why it works:

What this clip seems to be is a universal glitch past any barrier not against a wall. What I don't understand though is why it works and why it doesn't allow for clips past walls. The only explanation seems to be that they check ground position differently to vertical barriers.

It really sucks that the glitch seems to have really limited uses and fall damage kills you. If fall damage wasn't so strict you could probably skip some chapters (like the big high rise tower).

TheThrillness

Edit history:

TheThrillness: 2015-03-03 07:55:01 am

2015-03-03 07:54:35 am

thethrillness.blogspot.com

Part 1 of my segmented run:

Taking a break from it though.

I originally planned to upload a full and complete run but I've lost interest. It's an excellent game to play casually but when you try to apply speedrunning, it just becomes really meh. I might return back to it as there's still some crazy glitches I've seen on YouTube but no idea how to replicate them. Will save lots of time if replicated.

The first hour is really nothing that spectacular. The fights however can be really entertaining when you can take advantage of resetting. List of interesting fights and areas:

14:23 - First use of the "duck walk". It's used at special areas when the game does not allow you to move properly so the duck walk is the fastest method until you regain back normal control.

16:16 - The start of Headshot city.

21:51 - I'm slow to headshot the first guy because I need to let Tess have the time to stealth kill the guy at the left or I would need an extra headshot.

22:15 - Cool fight. I'm pretty sure you can remove the shiv from the route here if you're really good at the game. I only got it because of safety concerns.

39:21 - This fight was crazy to even get this standard and it's still bad. The enemies just move so fast and completely RNG that even getting this was like 150 retries.

40:28 - Out of bounds clip. Currently the only useful one. You pretty much die from fall damage at all places you try this or else you'd have some crazy sequence breaks.

47:46 to 48:25 - Psycho strategies to skip every enemy. The RNG manipulation to get this was beyond a joke.

At the end of this part, I'm currently about 4 minutes ahead of the RTA WR which is 3:24. I think 3:12 would have been a good ball park figure if completed.

-------------------

One of the glitches I need to figure out:

That would completely skip the hanging part as we hope the checkpoint that lies just at the door is active. Based on Left Behind, we know ND can't disable checkpoints so it should work.

Part 1 of my segmented run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vONEBoztGig

Taking a break from it though.

I originally planned to upload a full and complete run but I've lost interest. It's an excellent game to play casually but when you try to apply speedrunning, it just becomes really meh. I might return back to it as there's still some crazy glitches I've seen on YouTube but no idea how to replicate them. Will save lots of time if replicated.

The first hour is really nothing that spectacular. The fights however can be really entertaining when you can take advantage of resetting. List of interesting fights and areas:

14:23 - First use of the "duck walk". It's used at special areas when the game does not allow you to move properly so the duck walk is the fastest method until you regain back normal control.

16:16 - The start of Headshot city.

21:51 - I'm slow to headshot the first guy because I need to let Tess have the time to stealth kill the guy at the left or I would need an extra headshot.

22:15 - Cool fight. I'm pretty sure you can remove the shiv from the route here if you're really good at the game. I only got it because of safety concerns.

39:21 - This fight was crazy to even get this standard and it's still bad. The enemies just move so fast and completely RNG that even getting this was like 150 retries.

40:28 - Out of bounds clip. Currently the only useful one. You pretty much die from fall damage at all places you try this or else you'd have some crazy sequence breaks.

47:46 to 48:25 - Psycho strategies to skip every enemy. The RNG manipulation to get this was beyond a joke.

At the end of this part, I'm currently about 4 minutes ahead of the RTA WR which is 3:24. I think 3:12 would have been a good ball park figure if completed.

-------------------

One of the glitches I need to figure out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogSPSvbwVhk

That would completely skip the hanging part as we hope the checkpoint that lies just at the door is active. Based on Left Behind, we know ND can't disable checkpoints so it should work.